The OC Labor Federation says it’s highly opposed to elected officials contracting-out city services to private companies. It’s a top principle of theirs and for example drives the OC Employees Association’s political campaign against the City of Costa Mesa’s current city council.

But — the OC Labor Federation endorsed both Santa Ana Councilmember Benavides for Mayor and Councilmember Sarmiento for re-election. Hello — don’t they know this Council has been privatizing like crazy! Not just graffiti and landscaping services a couple of years ago, but this year alone they contracted out parking management services and street sweeping services. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and dozens of employees jobs given away to for-profit companies. This may not be all bad, but labor leaders claim it is. Continue reading→

The City of Santa Ana is in financial crisis. Even though the city leadership states that we have a balanced budget, the fact of the matter is that the current “balanced budget” is nothing more than basic accounting gimmicks. The truth will come out after the November elections. A review of the budget details shows the overly inflated fluff revenues that the city is expecting this year. These revenues include a 74% increase in building permits ($680K), a 40% increase in traffic fines ($120K), an 11% increase in Hotel Visitor taxes ($747K), a 223% increase of city property rentals ($230K) and a 63% increase on earnings from investments ($200K). Those assumptions account for nearly $2 million of the city’s projected revenue. Continue reading→

UPDATE: “Santa Ana’s nearly 130-year-old fire department is history come April — but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going away. The Santa Ana City Council has unanimously voted to have the Orange County Fire Authority take over fire services in the city,” according to KPCC.

The Santa Ana City Council is set to vote to outsource the Santa Ana Fire Department to the Orange County Fire Authority, at Tuesday night’s Council meeting.

It is looking like the City of Santa Ana is going to outsource its fire department, to the Orange County Fire Authority, saving over ten million per year. Some of my readers are asking why we can’t just negotiate those savings with the Santa Ana Benevolent Firemen’s Association. My sources at City Hall are telling me that the union won’t cooperate.

So why not outsource the award-winning Santa Ana Police Department too? Simple. The Santa Ana Police Officers Association is cooperating and savings are expected to be over ten million a year – and quite possibly as high as thirteen million a year. It doesn’t hurt that our Chief of Police, Paul Walters, is also now our Acting City Manager! He knows his police budget better than anyone.

How important are our police, to our community? Well, a recent study identified that communities get a lot of bang for their buck, when they hire police officers. Here is a recap of that study, from an L.A. Times editorial by Greg Ridgeway and Paul Heaton, published on Nov. 22 of this year: Continue reading→

Stewart also said, “This library says we are open to help you serve your needs. It is a place to get assistance without being judged.” Really? Well, the fact is, Lupe Moreno, the notorious Minuteman (hater of Mexican immigrants) is the manager of the Santa Ana Friends of the Library bookstore, according to their website. How are you supposed to take these people seriously when their board includes Moreno, who advocated deporting many of our residents? Talk about being judged! Here is a video of Moreno calling the children of many our residents “anchor babies:” Continue reading→

Two California cities have made the decision over the past week to essentially fire all their police officers and contract with other agencies.

One city, Maywood, went as far as to fire all their city workers and contract them out, according to Publicceo.com. You can also read about it at Publicceo.com.

And the city of San Carlos, in the Silicon Valley, recently made a move (4-1 by the Council) to contract out its police force. The move will eliminate the jobs of 32 officers and save the city $2.5 million a year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

The City of Santa Ana has quietly outsourced a lot of jobs over the past two years, because of our own budget crisis. But no one at City Hall wants to consider outsourcing our police department to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. But it makes a lot of sense. We are critically shorthanded in our police department.

Could we outsource and add more cops in the process – while still saving a ton of money? Shouldn’t we at least consider this and run the numbers?

The O.C. Sheriff’s Department is already located here in Santa Ana. They already provide services at the County Hall of Administration and they are on call when our own police need help, via a mutual aid agreement.

Don’t get me wrong, our police do a fine job for the most part, although I still think they target minorities and immigrants with their DUI checkpoints. But our city is broke. Shouldn’t we consider all options in trying to resolve our budget crisis?

And the O.C. Sheriff’s Department already provides police services throughout much of Orange County, as you can see in the graphic above. In fact they are the cops in some of Orange County’s wealthiest areas! Surely they could do the same here?

Now if it turns out there are no savings to be had, well then forget it. But at the very least we need to put this on the table…